


The Past Haunts The Present (And The Present Is A Haunted Past)

by midnightecho



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Feels, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2026023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightecho/pseuds/midnightecho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in the twenty-first century, Bucky haunts Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past Haunts The Present (And The Present Is A Haunted Past)

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a little thing I had to write because I could barely think for all the Steve Rogers feels filling up my head like welcome balloons of pain. Honestly he's such a wonderful character, I don't know how I wasn't this in love with him before. God bless Steve Rogers.

The twenty-first century has tried to be kind to Steve Rogers. Mostly it has provided distraction - not long after waking up he was being dragged off on Avengers missions. He'd barely had a chance to experience the new world, let alone dwell on his old one. He has kept himself occupied with missions and tactics, technology and the Internet, pop culture, music... The list goes on and on. There has been so much to catch up on from the past 70 years.

But eventually, inevitable as the next looming battle, Steve's thoughts drift, as he has been desperately trying to prevent them from doing, to Bucky.

Despite the decades that have passed in reality, his friend's death is still a fresh cut to Steve. He feels an ache whenever he hears the name, whenever he hears a voice with that same accent and register, whenever he hears someone say 'punk' (although nobody calls _him_ a punk anymore - he's not a punk without that jerk). Sometimes he even sees his face in -

_"Bucky?"_

The man on the street wrenches his right arm free from Steve's grip, turning to glare at him. _Of course,_ Steve rememebers. _Nobody talks to a stranger in the middle of a busy city. Not in this century._

And this man is a stranger. His eyes are alarmed, cautious, nothing like the gentle cockiness of the Bucky Steve had known, and are hung with bags of sleeplessness; his jaw is set rather than relaxed, and lank hair and rough stubble frames the face beneath the hoodie and cap. His hands grip the cuffs of the hoodie's sleeves and are thrust deep into the pockets, tense and blocking. This is not his Bucky.

But still, the likeness is agonising. A similar height, perhaps shorter from hunching in on himself defensively; the way he had moved was less confident but that sway was still there - Steve had watched Bucky walking all his childhood; the same facial structure stared back at him - that downturned mouth, the slight pout of it, those blue eyes, a hint of something that might even pass for recognition within them -

"What?"

It's angry and abrasive - the accent is slightly off, a foreign, Slavic quality to it, and the question is hostile and unengaging. The man looks him up and down, any form of familiarity dissipated as quickly as it had occurred.

Steve's gut twists. _Pull yourself together, Rogers._ He has lost everything from his past - he's even losing Peggy - and he knows that the only way to deal with it is to try to forget and move on. Distract himself. He's in the perfect setting for that.

"Sorry," he manages eventually. "I... I thought you were someone else."


End file.
